Friday, December 4, 2009

FIlms of the Decade

Following on from my books post last week, below I've listed my favourite films of the decade. I don't think it was a particularly good era for the movies. The Coens were off the boil, we no longer had Stanley Kubrick, some idiot reinvented torture porn and mindless blockbusters continued to dominate. Outside of Hollywood I think English and French art house films generally got overpraised out of sheer desperation (the Times puts the feeble Cache as their #1 film of the decade) and the explosion of Korean horror films didn't do much for me. Still, for what it's worth, these are my favourite films (not necessarily the best) of the noughties.

103 comments:

Good list. I haven't seen 2,3,7 or surprisingly 9, but I'd agree that the rest was very good. I can't think what else I'd put on my own, though I'm sure there would be a few. But I see what you mean, they were fun, but none give the sense of something really big and new, or even small and new coming out of the film tradition. Although actually, I feel like movies have slipped a notch even from here, or at least I haven't been going as much as I used to. Might just be me, though.

I dont think it is you. I think they have slipped. If you look at the period 1970-1979 compared with 2000-2009 there's been a massive drop off in quality. Professional film reviewers are probably too inside to notice this and anyway part of their job is to act as boosters for the industry.

Nice list. A few I haven't seen, which I shall add to the Netflix queue.

Ummm, Cache? Seriously!?!

Speaking of the Times list, that was a good one too, but for different reasons. It was odd to see a film like Casino Royale (which was effing awesome) ranked higher than films like There Will Be Blood and Memento. And then to see Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum come in at number 2, followed by Cache at number 1, you probably couldn't find two more different films.

I agree about the Greengrass Bourne Films but dont you think Casino Royale went on way too long? Like 45 minutes too long? Thats why Gladiator didnt make my list either. Great opening, but all that yaketty yak between the senators...

It is a pretty good list. Shaun of the Dead is one of the best for sure, along with Children of Men and Lost in Translation. Bloody Sunday was absolutely the most maddening movie I've ever seen, but a good one nonetheless.

These days a lot of things are making me feel old - falling asleep in the third period during Hockey Night in Canada, trying to remember where I left my keys, standing in bookstores wondering if I've read that book and on and on but nothing makes me feel old like the movies.

"Overpraised out of sheer desperation." That may be the defining phrase of the decade.

It seems to me there's a small market for good movies not being served because all movies want to be blockbusters, they all want to be that indie hit that got Oscar nominations.

We'll really see the sad condisiotn of the movie business when you list your top ten TV shows of the decade.

Charlie Russell, who has studied bears for 42 years, lived with them and raised them for a decade in Kamchatka, and corresponded with Timothy Treadwell, wrote of Herzog:

"Herzog is a skillful filmmaker so a large percentage of those who watch the movie Grizzly Man, overlook Timothy's amazing way with animals even though to me this stands out very strongly. The fact that Timothy spent an incredible 35,000 hours, spanning 13 years, living with the bears in Katmai National Park, without any previous mishap, escapes people completely. Even with his city-kid background, I found myself mesmerized by what he could do with animals. Most people now see him only the way Herzog skillfully wanted his audience to see him; as an idiot who continually "crossed nature's line," what ever that means. Perhaps, in his mind, nature’s line is something behind which bears and other nasty things reside who will inevitably kill you if you go there without a gun. He takes everything Timothy stood for and turned it 180°, the result which he then weaves into his own unsophisticated agenda."[5]

Yeah Google ate this and a few other posts. They were unretrievable until someone told me on a help page that I had to invent a new log-in name and invite myself to become an editor. Then I could edit the posts under the new name. Its so silly, but it works. Seana is psychic though.

I think I'm more of a Wild Things than a Mr Fox guy. I like the book, but Wes Anderson seems to only make films for Brooklyn hipsters now. I think he might need to spend a decade or so getting some life experience.

I haven't seen enough - clearly. But certainly there are a couple of movies that impressed me that are not on your list - "Maria Full of Grace", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Crash," "Memento," and "Being John Malkovich." I also got a real kick out of "Sexy Beast" even with its uneven story structure.

I think Eternal Sunshine and the Malkovich movies suggest a new direction for movies ---

Being John M was a '99 movie so I couldnt include it. I didnt love Eternal Sunshine as much as everyone else. I find Jim Carey intensely annoying in everything he's in. His presence in anything just ruins it for me I'm afraid.

Oh, and one other thing... I actually didn't like the Malkovich film all that much. I found it deeply depressing in a way that wasn't cathartic or liberating for me (by contrast, for instance, 5 Easy Pieces is quite a downer too, but it was also clarifying for me... well, I can't deny its power). Still, the movie's final images stick with me and the director is clearly someone with a fresh vision. Same goes for Gondry.

Did not like Being John Malkovich (is there a single likeable character in the movie?), but I absolutely love Eternal Sunshine and Adaptation. That part in Adaptation where Robert McKee is yelling at his audience of wannabe screenwriters, "don't ever use voiceover narration!!!" and then it cuts to Nic Cage walking the streets without the voiceover is brilliant.

re: Casino Royale - I know this is sacrilegious, but it might just be my favorite Bond film...

Speaking of Hockey Night in Canada, did you know that Dick Irvin was still alive?

Some American network picked up CBC programming of the Habs' 100th-anniversary game tonight, including a rinkside intervieqw with Guy Lafleur, Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden. Roy was the star. He spoke more openly and critically than any American would.============== Detectives Beyond Borders“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home” http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Good list; I'd put Sideways there instead of something like Lost in Translation. No Country for Old Men isn't my favourite Coen brothers film, but I'd have to have a film by them in the top 10, so that would be my choice over something Like Juno, mainly because the music bits in Juno sucked big time.

I liked both Sideways and No Country but I wouldnt kick anything out for them. However the more I think about Day Lewis's peformance in There Will Be BLood the more I want that to sneak in there somehow.

I was going to say, wait a minute, how can there be a verification word (though 'boaring' is a very good one), because I thought Adrian turned his off. But no, here they are again. What's up?

I have to confess that I was watching Casino Royale on television and actually turned it off after awhile. It wasn't really my kind of thing. too humorless. I'd say Connery was far and the way the best--the rest merge together in my mind, except for Craig who plays it so differently.

I still keep connected to the blog of of the poet Reginald Shepherd, even though he died over a year ago. Partly it seems weird to erase it, partly his partner sometimes posts updates there, and partly I misguidedly think I am going to go back and read his older posts, as they are quite interesting.This morning I had fifteen pieces of spam email because some spammer had gone through and hit all the old entries with some crap which I didn't even bother to open. For some reason, this bugs me more than the spamming of the living. I don't know why. It certainly isn't bothering poor Reginald now.

Adrian, a muscular list. I can't wait to see some of them...I live behind the times where I wait for dvd releases so that I can watch the movies in my house where I can eat ice cream, pet my dog, drink water, and do the occasional work out with 6 pound weights.

I know you have a problem with Almodovar, but could it be that you only saw his early films? I will admit Women on the Verge of a Nervous breakdown was very red, what with the gazpacho, the drag queens, and the ... color red. Very silly. But Talk to Her is like gorgeous and meaningful and a great story. His filmmaking and finding his voice as a filmmaker reminds me of transvestites. They go all out when they first get into trying to pass as the official other gender, and then mellow out as time goes by to get the look/walk/talk just right.

Also, it is my firm but unfounded belief that all of your anonymous commenters are actually Bono.

You're right about CR - I remember reading somewhere they used a lot of the same stunt people and/or choreographers from one of the Bourne movies for CR, because that's the aesthetic they were going for.

Though, the grimness of CR was one of the things I enjoyed about it. Brosnan was a good Bond, but his films were too over-the-top (not his fault at all), and watching Roger Moore's films now, I cringe whenever I see him karate-chopping an adversary.

I haven't read any of Fleming's books, but I heard that Craig's Bond is the closest thing to Fleming's Bond: cold, brutal, and somewhat ironic.

My partner and I have a short (under 3min) film called Professor Blue. We posted it online for a telus film contest. I think that the entry with the most stars/ratings wins for the month. We are trying to make a splash with the character to entice children to go into science, unlike me who avoided it like the plague.

If any of you have some time to kill and are inclined towards this ginning up of votes, go here --

http://www.shortsnonstop.com/video_view.php?videoId=3032

And then click on the stars to the right of the film to place your vote.

And if you'd rather I not ride on your coat-tails Adrian, well it's perfectly ok to bump out this comment.

You're close. Parts were filmed in Gloucester, part in Hull, part in the Laurentians where the partner and I live.

Peter, my American from the US family thinks Canadia is continually hilarious. I myself have once referred to the Laurentian mountains as the Larry mountains, but thank goodness I caught myself while around the siblings. I mentioned it to a grad student who was riding with me to Montreal. She was from India and didn't get much by way of play on words. You think my secret is still safe?

Also, I just re-watched REDS which stars a certain Woody Allen standby..Diane Keaton. I love this film, though I'd forgotten about it, and found Keaton's acting great.

It's funny but I know nothing about Marblehead, though it's on the way to Gloucester, which is where I lived for a time.

Brookline, a town on the border of Boston, had a well-deserved rep of a cops following black people kind of place in 1980s-90s. Not sure that that's still true. Now you're not allowed to park on the streets. As a professional couch surfer in the Boston area, this makes my life tough.

Sheiler: Ste.-Adele! St.-Jerome! Val David! Val Morin! Ste.-Agathe! Doesn't exactly have the ring of an old railroad song, but it does bring back memories of my youth.

I saw Reds on its original release, and I thought it was shite -- a routine love story with political window dressing thrown in for gravitas - and yeah, I know it was supposed to be based on John Reed's book, Four Hours That Shook My Wallet. The celebrity commenters were a grating idea, but Henry Miller said some good stuff. Warren Beatty is the intellectual father of Bono and George Clooney.================ Detectives Beyond Borders"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

I think you should expand that into a blog post. I find that I cant disagree with one caveat: I havent seen Reds. However I do remember seeing John Reed's grave in the Kremlin wall. Also I dont think there's a single Warren Beatty that I'd want to see twice. (and that includes Bonnie and Clyde).

Seana, there was some noise years ago about Warren Beatty running for president. I have read that since then, he has preferred to keep his political activity behind the scenes, for which i give him credit. ================ Detectives Beyond Borders"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Cache, number one! My wife and I watched this film with a group of pensioners during a wet afternoon, we would have walked out but everyone else in the row had fallen asleep, or died of boredom. Some of them did not even notice the suicide! The most pathetic film I have ever seen and the theme was put over with all the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros. The Lives of Others, Romanzo Criminale, The Constant Gardener and Body of Lies all infinitely better than Cache

I really appreciate the vote. Thanks for your trust in me as a blue-wigged pretend scientist.

If you're really interested, you might be able to see something on our website professorblue.com, but be warned. It's really haphazardly put together ... to emulate what some leotard thinks might appeal to children. We are in the process of making it look better and still taste great.

Sheiler, I really wish I could see the movie, but I can't view it at the moment. How long is the voting period? That might actually motivate me to do something about the sad state of my computer's capabilities.

Thanks - it's not clear the end date other than Jan 15th being the new deadline for the next contest. Don't sweat it because if you're computer won't let you see the video then you might need to upgrade your processing speed which means, maybe?, new computer. But that's just a rumor.

Oh, just came across one local film critics best films of 2009 here.(It's just under the picture of the train. The rest is mostly local stuff, but Robin Williams haters might enjoy the diatribe against his latest comedy performance right below.)

The odd thing is that I haven't seen any of the movies listed, which just goes to show how sadly out of touch with movie-going I am these days.

I haven't read the list Saena attatched, bu I will say that when I saw the ads for Old Dogs I thought it was from a movie-within-a-movie that we were expected to be making fun of, and the movie itself was going to be a story of some movie stars down on their luck and that trailer was an example of how far they'd sunk.

Sheiler, I think you probably better figure out how to find the nerve, then.

It doesn't have to start big, you know. You could offer to MC a local event for charity, join an improv class--you know, stuff like that. Your guest appearance on the David Letterman show doesn't come till much later, so relax.

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More about me

I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.

In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year.

In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book In The Morning I'll Be Gone won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award.

Pages

All Hail McKinty!

"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Times

"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."

---The Guardian

"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Irish Times

"McKinty is a big new talent."

---The Daily Telegraph

"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."

---The Sunday Independent

"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Glasgow Herald

"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."

---Kirkus Reviews

"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."

---Publishers Weekly

"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."

---The San Francisco Chronicle

"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."

---The Rocky Mountain News

"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."

---The Washington Post

"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."

---The Miami Herald

"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."

---The Philadelphia Inquirer

"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."

---The Chicago Sun-Times

"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."

---The Barcelona Review

"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."

---The Observer

"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."

---The Morning Star

"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."

---Booklist

"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."

---The Big Issue

"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."

---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."

---The Irish Examiner

"A virtual carnival of slaughter."

---The Wall Street Journal

"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."

"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."

---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger

"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."

---The New York Times

"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."

---CrimeSpree

"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."

---The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."

What's Next For Me?

A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.